Royal welcome for swans at ceremony
Updated on 20 July 2009
A brood of cygnets was given a royal welcome at the first Swan Upping ceremony witnessed by a monarch in centuries.
The Queen travelled up the River Thames to see the ancient ritual of counting the birds along Britain's most famous waterway.
The ceremony used to be a means to provide food for the royal dinner table with some cygnets taken away to be fattened, but today the event is about conservation rather than consumption.
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